Mike's Motown invite
By DAVID SEIFMAN, City Hall Bureau Chief

Last Updated: 3:54 AM, July 19, 2011

Posted: 1:07 AM, July 19, 2011

If Detroit can't find people from overseas to repopulate the city, it should compete with New York to lure away the Big Apple's immigrants, Mayor Bloomberg suggested yesterday.

"If I had a big city where a big percentage of my schools had empty seats and roads weren't that busy and housing that nobody wanted and was vacant, I would go as fast as I could to recruit immigrants that are already here," the mayor said during a telephone conference held by Detroit's Wayne State University on how to cure the Motor City's ills.

Bloomberg noted that some states have passed anti-immigration laws, making them ripe for the picking. But he also, oddly, added New York City into the mix.

"A city like Detroit can go into competition with New York," the mayor said. "I would not be happy if they were successful, but they can try."

New York City prohibits discrimination against immigrants solely because of their documentation, making it attractive to international arrivals.

"As the mayor mentioned today, we've lost 1 percent of our jobs while the rest of the country lost 6 percent," said mayoral spokesman Stu Loeser. "A significant reason why is that New York attracts entrepreneurs and hard workers from around the world."

david.seifman@nypost.com

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